


Marvel's Chopped Champion

by yukiawison



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Chopped (US)
Genre: Chopped, F/F, Holy crap why did I write this??, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3438317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukiawison/pseuds/yukiawison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They came in early Thursday morning to shoot Bucky's intro bit for the show. He'd seen enough Chopped episodes to know the drill. A little about your work history, a little about your family and career driven attitude, and a lot about the sick mother or European vacation you were planning on using the $10,000 on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marvel's Chopped Champion

They came in early Thursday morning to shoot Bucky's intro bit for the show. He'd seen enough Chopped episodes to know the drill. A little about your work history, a little about your family and career driven attitude, and a lot about the sick mother or European vacation you were planning on using the $10,000 on.

He didn't have much to say. Sure he'd worked his way up from bartending in Brooklyn gay bars to a position as sous chef at a four star restaurant, but he was fine where he was. He didn't have the edge people usually seemed to have on that show. He could just use the money.

Sure the whole war veteran, metal arm thing was enough for an entertaining intro, but Bucky Barnes was more interested in who exactly would be his competition.

"Do you know who I'm up against?" He asked one of the cameramen, smoothing hair from his face and rolling up his sleeves.

"Bunch of New York natives," he said. "Peggy Carter, she got that Bon Appetit feature last month...and um Steve Rogers? He's a chef at that one Italian place I think. Angie Martinelli, the pastry chef, is the fourth."

Bucky shook his head. Apart from Peggy he hadn't heard of any of his competitors. They weren't likely to have heard of him either, but he'd hoped to gain an advantage knowing who he was up against.

"What are you doing?" Sam stuck his head into Steve's room and frowned. "Are you taking notes?"

"I'm researching the chefs I'm competing against on Chopped tomorrow."

"Well isn't that sweet. You better win so you can afford to buy me dinner at some place you don't work. Hey, who's that?"

Steve had pulled up a photo of James Barnes, his only male competitor, and a sous chef around his age.

"Um..James "Bucky" Barnes," he muttered.

"Dude, he's hot."

"I'm aware."

"You think you can pick up the hot chef with a robot arm along with the $10,000?"

Steve scowled. It wasn't as if he hadn't thought about it. But Chopped wasn't the best place to pick up guys, not if he was expected to focus on cooking.

"I'll try my best asshole."

"Oh no," Peggy Carter groaned, scrunching her eyes shut and sticking her phone out over Daniel Sousa's newspaper.

"What?" he grinned, setting down the sports section and looking at the screen.

"My competition tomorrow," she sighed.

"No way, this isn't...?"

"It is."

He laughed. "Oh my god, I can't believe the time you finally get on Chopped you have to beat your chef crush."

Peggy's eyes narrowed, like she was going to try to argue, but Daniel had witnessed the blatant flirting when they'd visited Angie Martinelli's bakery. Which was delicious, Daniel had made sure to tell Peggy just how good, that unfortunately Peggy's pastries couldn't measure up. "You should stick with soups...and those fancy looking appetizers. You're good at that."

"So," he raised an eyebrow. "Shall the flirting continue?"

Peggy whacked him with his paper.

"Welcome to Chopped, New York natives edition."

Bucky was having trouble concentrating. It was still a little difficult processing the fact that he was in the same room as Ted Allen.

"Tonight's very special judges include the millionaire inventor Tony Stark, renowned food critic Edwin Jarvis, and author and head chef of Puritan de Fantaisie Natasha Romanoff."

Peggy felt a little dizzy, a tad starstruck. She looked over at Angie to her right. She winked. Already sure of herself, she had reason to be.

Angie was kind of disappointed that Queen Alex Guarnaschelli wasn't a judge. She supposed Tony Stark was better for ratings.

"Please open your baskets."

Steve looked down at his basket and not at Bucky Barnes, hair pulled back in a loose bun, tattoos down his right arm, metal up his left.

"And we have shrimp, apple juice, arugula, and eggplant."

Dammit. Bucky hated arugula, and shrimp was such a pain to clean. He had a plan though. Something light and simple. An arugula and spinach salad with grilled shrimp and eggplant and an apple dressing. He got to work quickly, scooting behind Steve Rogers and into the pantry.

"Behind," he barked, getting his first good look at the blonde. He was definitely too attractive to be stuck in a kitchen, yet by the look of his knife skills he definitely knew what he was doing.

Steve wasn't worried. He started grilling the eggplant for his puree, tossing the arugula and some pine nuts in a pan to toast. He got an apple juice and soy sauce marinade for the shrimp going, and hoped for the best.

Peggy decided to grill the eggplant, wilting the arugula in an apple juice mixture and frying up the shrimp for the crunch the dish needed. She eyed Angie, who was working rather frantically, glancing at the clock a little too often. "Are you all right Angie?"

"Just workin English."

Angie was frying the eggplant. She'd only ever had it in eggplant parmesan so that's what she was going for...with shrimp, and arugula. Admittedly it didn't sound great. She decided to cut the eggplant in strips and make an apple sauce to dip it in, grilling the shrimp for a quick wilted arugula salad.

"Chefs you have ten minutes remaining."

Shit shit shit. The shrimp was driving Bucky crazy. The metal arm was not, contrary to popular belief, a useful cooking tool. Mostly it got in the way and slowed things down. At least it couldn't get cut or burned.

Ted Allen was talking to the judges, and Tony Stark, the insufferable asshole, was laughing at something. Steve felt sweat on the back of his neck and at two minutes he started plating.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven..."

Angie was scrambling, nearly dropping the hot strips of eggplant.

"Six, five, four..."

Peggy's plating was impeccable, as expected.

"Three, two..." 

Jesus Christ Steve Rogers was hot.

"One, hands up!"

Bucky's metal hand caught the light. He looked down at his plate, then over to Steve's, Peggy's, and Angie's. He wasn't worried.

"Chef Martinelli," Jarvis stared down at the plate. "While what you've presented is lovely, you seem to be missing one of the basket ingredients."

Peggy was glad Mr. Jarvis was nice about it. Not like Stark's blunt criticism of her shrimp frying abilities. Not that she couldn't take it. Peggy Carter didn't need Tony Stark's validation.

Nevertheless, Angie nodded, and gestured forlornly to the wilted arugula still on her station.

"The judges will need a moment to deliberate."

Angie had a sinking feeling in her stomach. None of the other critiques had been worse than the missing arugula.

The four sat awkwardly in the waiting room, twiddling thumbs and tapping feet on the stools they had to sit on.

"Ms. Martinelli, for the record," Peggy began. "My friends and I have agreed that you have the best pastries in New York."

"Agreed," Steve said. "I need that brownie recipe stat."

"Thank you," she smiled. "I'm still going to be chopped."

"Angie..." Peggy was going to say more, but it was time to go back in.

"Unfortunately only three New York chefs can continue to the dinner round," Ted Allen said, hand poised to reveal who was on the chopping block.

Peggy was sad when she saw Angie' plate. She gave her a sympathetic look as Natasha explained why they had to chop her.

"Thank you for the opportunity," she said. "And English?" She looked to Peggy. "Call me if you win...or if you lose," she winked again and Peggy's knees felt weak.

Bucky looked at Steve, and Steve looked back at him, grinning.

"Alright then," Ted Allen said, a bit confused. "Competitors please open your baskets."

"The ingredients are: Quail, licorice, pasta salad, and capers."

Now this was just not his day. Bucky couldn't stand licorice. He opened up the package and tried a bite anyway.

Bucky Barnes clearly didn't like licorice. His face contorted and he looked a little sick, scowling down at the package with the air of an ill tempered cat. It was kind of funny, but Steve knew not to laugh.

Peggy had the quail covered, roasting it with thyme, and throwing the licorice and capers in a pot to form some semblance of a sauce.

Bucky was freaking out. He was staring at the ingredients, the clock was ticking away, and he had no idea what to do. His hand started to shake, his face paled, and he fled to the pantry to try to get a hold of himself.

Bucky didn't look okay. Steve's quail was in the oven and he was ahead of schedule so he followed him into the pantry.

"Bucky, are you okay?"

Bucky looked up and flushed beet red. "I'm...I'm panicking a little."

"Hey, take a deep breath. It's okay. I've had my fair share of freak outs but I know you can kill this."

"How do you know?"

"I bet my roommate $20 I'd be you and me in the dessert round."

Bucky grinned. "How much time do we have left?"

"Twenty three minutes. Your quail in the oven?"

"That's the one thing I did do," Bucky said, eyes lighting up, he made a run for the fridge.

The sauce didn't work. Natasha Romanoff frowned just looking at it, and as much as Peggy wanted the $10,000, she was fine with just a date with Angie.

It was Steve and Bucky, facing each other severely as they did that classic bit where the chefs promised to bring it in the last round. 

The basket ingredients weren't bad: trail mix, samoas, pie dough, and lime. Steve started on a trail mix samoa crumble with white chocolate, frying circles of pie dough to coat with sugar.

Bucky was making a bee line for the ice cream machine, citrus sorbet with an emphasis on lime would be perfect on his plate, not to mention he'd never seen a chef use the ice cream machine and lose.

He was cutting up samoas, trail mix peanuts, and some chopped coconut for a pie crust pastry, hoping the judges didn't see too much disconnect between a sorbet and a coconut, chocolaty pastry...maybe he'd put some lime zest in a whipped cream, and throw some coconut in the sorbet.

Steve finished his pie dough circles with some sugar and lime zest, arranging the crumble on top as Ted counted down.

"It's a little dry," Jarvis said of the crumble.

"This lime zest is on point though," Tony cut in, getting glares from the other two judges.

Of course sorbet went over fabulously, and though they saw a slight disconnect between pastry and sorbet, the coconut and lime cross over augmented it.

"It's anyone's game," Steve said, as they sat in the waiting room. "You did really well."

"Thanks to you I made it past the last round," Bucky muttered.

"Hey, I got $20," he grinned.

"So you...?"

"What?"

"If you don't mind my asking..."

"What is it Bucky?"

"You like guys right?"

"Right, this is just about the gayest episode of Chopped they could put on the air."

"Right, because all four contestants are queer."

"Oh, okay so you..."

"Do you wanna go out? With me? I mean if I win I'm sure I can afford it. Dinner? With dessert at Angie's bakery?"

Steve was embarrassed for the cameraman who walked in on them making out ten minutes later. It wasn't as if there was anything better to do in there...at least that's what he told himself. They were reassured that that footage wouldn't be aired.

Steve straightened his collar, and Bucky fixed his hair. Ted Allen was poised to lift the tray. They both leaned forward and...the crumble. The dry crumble with on point lime zest was on the chopping block. Bucky had won.

"Congratulations Chef Barnes you are the Chopped champion."

Before he could think he tugged Steve toward him and planted one right on his lips. "See you Saturday then?"

"Course, congrats."

"Well," Ted Allen was smiling a perplexed smile. "I'm not sure if we can show that but...I'll try my best," he said.

Bucky apologized profusely for his slip up, thanked them for the title and the money, and fiddled with the bit of paper Steve had written his number on.

"Hey, at least you got Mr. Robot Arm," Sam said when the episode aired. Much to their embarrassment the producers had kept every bit of footage.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the group message. You know who you are.


End file.
